


earth and sky say what they may (I will love you all throughout my days)

by lettersfromnowhere



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabbles, F/M, Inspired by Music, Romance, future fic mostly, screw canon they've been happily married for decades, timeline is wildly all over the place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: A writing exercise: fifty Zutara drabbles of all types and varieties, all inspired by music.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	1. "The Light" - Sara Barielles

**Author's Note:**

> This is what it says on the tin and came about as an attempt to purge the Zutara angst from my system with music and fic. :p Each drabble is inspired by one song on my very playlist of sappy love songs. 
> 
> First attempt at writing anything for ATLA, so please forgive poor characterization if it occurs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mKdIhU_QQ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This reminded me of nightmares ig? so here ya go. 
> 
> (I'M SORRY GUYS, I SWEAR MY WRITING IS MORE ELOQUENT THAN MY SUMMARIES ;-;)

He holds her when the dreams won’t let him rest. He fears, even as her hands gently card through his hair, that she will vanish at the brush of his fingertips, for he still believes she is infinitely beyond anything his hands deserve to touch. But she never crumbles.

She looks to him for light in the pitch-darkness of her memories when they come crashing down upon her. She’s been looked to as a constant all her life; on nights when the past haunts her, she lets him act as hers.

On the hardest nights, they break and mend together.


	2. "Tenerife Sea" - Ed Sheeran

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHTEGQbtP1I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this song has that "awestruck by the beauty of your S.O. at a totally inappropriate time" vibe. Then again, so does almost every Ed Sheeran love song - and I will warn you, there are like, four on this playlist. So expect lots of staring!Zuko and situations conveniently requiring formal wear. 
> 
> I guess I'm just unoriginal like that. XD

“You’re staring.”

“I know,” he says, his arm brushing against hers, silk on silk, as he leans in just a fraction of an inch closer. It’s entirely obvious just how much they are not paying attention to the Earth Kingdom diplomat who’s in the middle of making an absolutely interminable toast.

“Why?” a tiny, bemused smile flits across her lips. Katara knows, but if he’s going to stare at her during a state function…

“Do I really need to tell you?” the look he’s giving her right now can be neither missed nor misread. 

“No, but I’d like you to.”


	3. "A Thousand Years" - Christina Perri/Boyce Avenue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtOvBOTyX00  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIj07LL57RA
> 
> (I had two versions of this on my playlist.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a huge fan of this one, which is odd because this seems like the easiest song in the universe to write a romantic drabble about, and the hardest to mess up. It's like grilled cheese. No one messes up grilled cheese. 
> 
> But here ya go. A messed-up grilled cheese can still be delicious...right?

It was the dim light of the cave and the feather-light brush of her fingers against his face that started it. But not until he felt Katara’s arms around him did Zuko know, with every fiber of his being, that there would be no going back. 

And then it was her, and only her, every sunrise and sunset and moment in between, and the feeling of quiet melancholy when she was away, and her smile, and the flush of her cheeks when she noticed him noticing her, and her lips on his. 

She is everything.   
Maybe she always has been.


	4. "Come What May" from "Moulin Rouge"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjTPIET9wH8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took this song more in the "I'd weather any difficulty to be with you" sense than the "I'll love you forever" sense, so this drabble isn't nearly as sappy as it could've been given the song. But I think it works. I mean, being the Firelady has to be pretty rough sometimes, right?
> 
> Also, I'm finding that I tend to default to writing in Zuko's voice, which is kinda weird to me because I have almost no practice with male voices. Iiiiinteresting.

“I just don’t want you to be unprepared. As the Firelady, you’re going to have a lot of eyes on you, and most of them probably won’t-“

“Zuko.” Katara cuts him off, her arms crossed as she watches Zuko pace the floor. “I’m not stupid. I know what comes with the title.”

“Yes, it will, which is why-“ She gets up, crosses the room, halts his infuriating pacing with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“And I don’t care.”

“Katara, I-“

 _“Do you want me to marry you or not?_ ”

“Of _course_ I do, I just-“

“Then I’d be honored.”


	5. "If You Stay" - Joseph Vincent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIVu-egUMM0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a happy song, and I STILL managed to make the related drabble about mutual pining. *slow clap* 
> 
> Also, if it isn't clear, this is pre-relationship.

She wishes that she could be in multiple places at once – wherever she was needed, wherever she could be with the ones she loved, all at the same time. But she’ll have to stick to visits for now, ache as they do when they come to an end.

“You can’t stay another day?” Zuko knows the answer before he asks the question but asks anyway, wishing it could prolong her visit by a few days. 

“You know I can’t.”

One of these days he’s got to tell her why exactly he wishes she’d stay, but today isn't that day.


	6. "Home" - Bruno Major

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiP3Y8HxreM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my all-time favorites and pure fluff, because domestic married sleepytimes are my FAVORITE.

Half of the early morning hours are gone before Katara gets a chance to turn in. Zuko is already asleep; she absently wonders how long it’s been.

“At least one of us is going to sleep tonight,” she mumbles, though she knows he can’t hear her. This was neither of their best days, and his warmth and the softness of the pillows are a blessed relief. Weary and quickly slipping into sleep, Katara snuggles up against his abdomen ( _so warm_ , she thinks admiringly, in a half-asleep haze). 

He tightens his arms around her without waking, and it feels like home.


	7. "Heartstrings" - Kolohe Kai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw1KcCziQnI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those ~island vibes~ lent themselves perfectly to some goofy Ember Island shenanigans with the gang, ft. the "we're a couple now but kinda don't want anyone to know yet even though we're obvious as all heck and they totally do" vibe. It has pretty much nothing to do with the song, but this one was really fun to write.

“You realize we’re kinda obvious, right?”

"Uh..."

He looks incredibly confused, so she spells it out. "Zuko, everyone knows.”

“But-“

“We’ve been living in the same house for a week, you blush when I so much as look in your direction, and Toph can feel when people are lying, so…it won't be long before they start-“

“Can you take...whatever _this_ is...where I can't see it?" Sokka shouts from the balcony, as if on cue. "I really don't want to watch you flirt with my sister!”

“-teasing us.”

Zuko’s cheeks flush bright red, and Katara can’t help but laugh.


	8. "Turning Page" - Sleeping at Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cry85KUzzU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I was not KIDDING about my love of married sleepytimes! This can be seen as a continuation of #6 if you want it to. This, again, has nothing to do with the song - it's the ~vibe~, not the lyrics, that inspired this one.

Katara wakes with the sun most days, but her exhausted body just wouldn’t stand for it today, and so the sun is streaming through the slats in the blinds by the time she awakens. Zuko’s already up, his chin resting on her shoulder and one arm looped around her waist.

“Morning, beautiful.” He presses a kiss to the crown of her head and she shifts contentedly in his arms. “Sleep well?”

“Mm-hm,” Katara mumbles, her heart melting a little. “What time's it?”

“Mm…ten, maybe?”

“Don’t wanna move,” she mutters.

“Then stay.” 

They've got nowhere to be, so she does. 


	9. "Beneath Your Beautiful" - Labrinth and Emeli Sande

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIxCtEveG8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially, I was going to use a different song for this, until I realized I was actually kind of sick of it and that this would be a better Zutara song, so here ya go. Whump...ish.

They’re more than used to being in danger, but knowing the other is in peril never loses its sting.

  
“I’m okay, I promise.” Zuko shrugs his bandaged shoulder – really the only evidence of his earlier run-in with a splinter group still loyal to his father – as if to prove this. It doesn’t work.

“You could’ve been killed,” Katara insists, gripping his arm – the one on the uninjured side – a little tighter. “When are you going to stop putting yourself in danger?”

“When there’s no need to,” he replies, and Katara can’t protest, because she knows she’d give the same answer.


	10. "Love Like This" - Ben Rector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zus07Tqy5cI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be sap.

Sometimes Zuko is amazed by just how _good_ Katara is, by the fierce loyalty that exists beside near-impossible gentleness as if such a contradiction is nothing out of the ordinary. He’s amazed by her strength of conviction and her endless capacity for love. He’s amazed by _her,_ in every imaginable way – wants her to be proud of him, and is lucky enough to know that she is.

In his lowest moments, he feels unworthy, and even in the better ones, he wonders how he came to deserve the joy and admiration and trust in her eyes when they meet his. 


	11. “Sway” by Dan + Shay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://youtu.be/KvhzB2Ka20A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look, ANOTHER Ember Island drabble. This time with dancing because apparently every other love song is about dancing?

something - maybe the balmy weather or the sea or the music - has Katara in a dancing mood tonight.

“Come on!” she insists, running towards the firmer sand where the water caresses the shore. They can faintly hear the music that’s still playing at the festival in town, the one they’ve run away from for a moment alone.

“I don’t know how,” Zuko protests feebly, but she isn’t listening, and she laces her hands around his neck as they begin to sway.

“Like this,” she says, and they settle into an easy rhythm beneath the torchlight, waves lapping at their feet.


	12. “Red Roses” - AJ Rafael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://youtu.be/CBqkciiW58I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has PEAK awkward Zuko vibes. PEAK. Set shortly after canon ends.

“Uh...hey.” 

_That’s it? “Hey”?!?_

Katara clearly doesn’t mind, though; she smiles, the kind that reaches her eyes, before she pulls him into a hug. “Missed you too, _Firelord_ ,” she says, and something about her tone makes his cheeks flame. 

“I’m...glad you’re...here,” Zuko replies haltingly. He thinks he’d find doing a cannonball into a volcano less painful than his own awkwardness. “It’s been too long.” 

“So, how’s it been?” Katara asks, as if he hasn’t sent her eight letters in the last month, all of which she’s replied to. 

“Uh...good? I guess?” 

_Better now that you’re here._


	13. "Can't Help Falling in Love" - Hailey Reinhart cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqLU4wPzDVg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another of those songs it seems almost impossible to mess up that just did not come out well. Oops. Apparently I'm better at super obscure songs. 
> 
> I don't have a specific timeline in mind but I'm thinking they're probably around 16 and 18 in this, so they've had a few years to get settled into their new roles but aren't quite at a place to be in a relationship yet.

Katara’s stomach is swooping with inexplicable nervous anticipation as she waits to be seen. She doesn’t want to name the feeling, but it makes itself known anyway, reappearing without fail on every visit to Caldera, and there’s little she can do or say to convince herself the off-kilter sensation isn’t there.

But it scares her, this inevitability. Nothing in her entire life has prepared her for the warmth that blooms in her chest when they lock eyes after months apart, or how utterly beyond her control it is.

And yet…nothing she’s experienced before has ever felt quite so _right._


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1fLFWxCCbI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's another of my favorite songs, and I rewrote it like five times to get it right...which I still didn't. But I hope you like it anyway?

They’ve seen each other at and through their worst – in impetuous youth, in enmity, in their most misguided moments, in their hardest times. They’ve watched each other grow in years and perspective, and there was nothing smooth about the path they’ve taken to this destination – love wasn’t enough, at first. Not with so much to overcome, with trust that had to be won before hearts could.

But a love like that can weather anything. Really, there’s little that life could throw at it that it hasn’t already, but even if it tried...

Well, that bond’s too hard-won to break now.


End file.
